In the immediate post-war years, people desperately wanted to return to some kind of normality. In keeping with this spirit, the popular impression has grown up that the period after 1945 was about reconstruction, with Marshal Aid and other initiatives playing a key part in the rebuilding of Europe. It's true, this did happen, eventually, but the reality was that in 1945 the world literally lay in ruins: cities everywhere had been bombed into rubble, tens of millions of people were displaced, infrastructures were broken, and violence continued - not least against the surviving Jews, who were not welcomed back to the homelands from which the Nazis had expelled them: indeed, in places like Poland, they were again subjected to murderous pogroms. The devastated German Reich alone contained millions of liberated and resentful slave labourers, and had to accept millions more Germans who were now, as the defeated perpetrators, arbitrarily and brutally ejected from areas of Europe where they had lived for centuries. Lack of food and shelter was endemic in the post-war world, so stealing, looting, exploitation, racketeering and murder was widespread, reflecting a complete breakdown of morality and law and order. As for the German people, they seemed to regard themselves as much as victims as everybody else, blaming their leaders for their woes while forgetting their own part in the biggest calamity of all - the genocide of the European Jews. Find out more in Series 2, Episode 10 of Unknown Warriors.
If you think you know about WW2, it's time to think again.
An Understanding History Podcast
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